Monday, November 5, 2012

California v. the Koch Brothers

It’s been known for some time that a
shady Arizona-based organisation was funnelling large amounts of money (to the
tune of $11 million) into the campaigns against Prop 30 and in favour of Prop
32.The failure of the former would mean
the further evisceration of California’s education system, and the passage of
the latter would further circumscribe the political power of California’s
working class.

Typically, the so-called Americans for
Responsible Leadership nonprofit refused to disclose the source of its funding,
a somewhat ironic stance for an organisation ostensibly dedicated to “educating
the public about concepts that advance government accountability, transparency,
ethics”.

To cap the indignity off, we’ve just
learned, as described in the Los AngelesTimes that although “the out of state group said only that the money came
from other nonprofits”, that much of the $11 million has come
from groups affiliated with the Koch Brothers, now infamous from their embrace
of corporate personhood and the cascade of campaign money laundering over which
they’ve presided in the last few years.

There are now, it seems, even greater
stakes in Tuesday’s election in California: sending a signal to the Koch
Brothers and their ilk that California, our schools, and our democracy are not
under any circumstances for sale, particularly to a pack of cut-throat
carpet-bagging corporate thugs.

About Me

I am from Northern California, and am the fifth generation of my family to have lived in the Golden State. Now I live next-door in the Silver State, where I research and write about colonialism and decolonization in Africa, teach European, African, environmental, and colonial history, and write this blog, mostly about politics, sometimes about history, and occasionally about travels or research.